The woman in the mirror had no hair left to hide behind and, I realized, nothing left to shrink for either.

They had taken the last of it.

And in taking the last of it, they had accidentally set me free, because a woman who has already been humiliated as completely as a person can be has nothing left to protect, and a woman with nothing left to protect is the most dangerous kind of opponent there is.

I did not cry because crying is what you do when you still hope the other person will be sorry.

I had stopped hoping Conrad would be sorry somewhere around the moment he asked his mistress what she was thinking instead of asking whether I was bleeding.

What replaced the hope was not sadness.